lector

What it means

1. lifestyleA lay person who reads aloud certain religious texts in a church service.
2. educationA public lecturer or reader at some universities.
3. UShistoricalcigar industryA person who reads aloud to workers to entertain them, appointed by a trade union.

   Its lyrical, poetic flights seem much more at home in the romantic musings of two sisters competing for the attention of the new, handsome lector, a man hired to read stories to workers in a Florida cigar factory, who might otherwise be mesmerized by the repetitive boredom of their jobs.

   2004 October 27, D. J. R. Bruckner, “New Inflections and Nuance in a Florida Cigar Factory”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

In a sentence

Its lyrical, poetic flights seem much more at home in the romantic musings of two sisters competing for the attention of the new, handsome lector, a man hired to read stories to workers in a Florida cigar factory, who might otherwise be mesmerized by the repetitive boredom of their jobs.

2004 October 27, D. J. R. Bruckner, “New Inflections and Nuance in a Florida Cigar Factory”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

Where it comes from

1. Polishlektor
2. Late Latinlēctor
3. Middle Englishlector
4. Englishlector

From Middle English lector, lectoure, lectour, from Late Latin lēctor, from legō (“to read”). “Voice-over” sense probably adapted from Polish lektor. Doublet of lecture and lecturer.